Its’ warm up there in the Midwest

Share your Thoughts
Posted on March 27, 2007
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

I have a brief opportunity to post today, and there is so much to talk about. For one thing, it got a bit warm up there in the upper Midwest — low to mid 80s in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Yikes! I’m from there. This isn’t supposed to happen in March!

Okay, one odd and unnerving weather event does not global warming/climate change make. However, many folks are unnerved and it is yet one more in the endless string of extreme weather events in recent years that suggest that weather patterns are changing.

Hard to argue with experience. Hard to ignore the fact that weather is in the news constantly now.

I’m in New Hamshire right now, and, as you know from my recent post on the Town Hall debates on climate change a few few days ago, folks here are seeing real and tangible changes that will have enormous impacts on the local economy, most especially the warmer, shorters winters that are putting things like the skiing industry in jeopardy.

Conservative state, yes. Fears about climate change, absolutely.

In Needham, Massachusetts, over the weekend, I spoke to a church group about some of these huge challanges that are facing us in the decades ahead, and the questions they pose for our lifestyles here in the US. I received a standing ovation, and I don’t think it’s because I am especially brilliant but because people are ready and eager to hear the message. This has happened multiple times now and it confirms for me yet again that we are lacking the leadership on these issues that many, many people are seeking.

So when I turned on the news last night with my colleague here in NH, we saw a story on the new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison about how global warming is going to make some climates disappear altogether and create new ones that we don’t even understand yet. Here’s a link to the article in the Milwaukee newspaper.

I don’t know about you, but this terrifies me. It’s all about how we are entering a very unpredictable period in Earth’s evolution, one likely to have chaotic and turbulent consequences for we humans as we try to live in an altered world, as we lose thousands of species that are part of the balance of nature that made us possible. If we think we can break down climate and ecosystems and just adapt and go one about our lives, we are in for some dreadful surprises.

We can do this differently, if we have the will. We can’t stop many dire changes from happening now because many trends are already irreversible. But we can keep this from becoming truly disastrous if we can muster the will and the courage to make changes now.

I learned at a suburban church in Needham that many more people are ready to deal with this than some may believe. This is another reason why I call this project ecological hope.


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Comments

2 Responses to “Its’ warm up there in the Midwest”

  1. george naytowhowcon on March 27th, 2007 4:21 pm

    Dear Margaret,
    Global Warming has two main drivers. The biggest driver of climate is the Sun, which is hotter now and this is a cycle that has a well documented reccord. Seccond driver is ENGINEERED Global Warming events, like super storms such as Katrina. Please look into these topics and familiarize yourself with what various military and corporate and government funded projects concerning weather modification, weather weapons, are doing.

    Do you watch the sky? Have you noticed the persistant “contrails’ behind many aircraft? These are called Chemtrails, look up Chemtrails as google search. Look up “Artificial Clouds” New Ruskin Institute , University of Alaska. Look into HAARP also run out of University of Alaska. The HAARP devise is an antenea array of some six hundred antenea that broadcast millions of watts of directed microwave energy freaquency modulation at target areas of the uppermost atmosphere, the ionisphere. This devise is called an Ionisphere Heater. It is used to superheat upper atmospheric molecules into a plasma that cuases a raising of the targetted area up to ten miles higher than the natural altitude of the Ionisphere. This is called Lensing the Atmosphere and thus heats the lower atmosphere DELIBERATELY, heat waves and droughts are engineered.

    Volcanism adds 90% more Green House Gasses than all humanities activities every year, so the Green House Gasses are not the real culprit. See the BBC production “The Great Global Warming Swindle” available as Google video.

    Please inform yourself on these topics, you will be horrified at the assault upon our natural atmosphere. Mind you I am a tree hugger and I don’t feel polution is ever a good idea. I just want TRUTH reported and to that end, good luck!

    Sincerely, George NaytowhowCon

  2. ecologicalhope on April 3rd, 2007 12:28 pm

    Dear George,

    I DO inform myself, every day. I confess that I googled your name and so I know where this contrail business comes from.

    I doubt your comments will confuse many of my readers, but just in case — “The Great Global Warming Swindle” is NOT A BBC PRODUCTION, and is itself a swindle from a British TV channel with a dubious record.

    A couple of scientists quoted in this film have said that they were manipulated and their comments taken out of context.

    For more from REAL scientists, visit: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/. To read what one of the manipuluated scientists wrote, visit: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled-carl-wunsch-responds/

    RealClimate is a great blog, by the way — “climate science from climate scientists.” I highly recommend it to you if you are interested in truly informing yourself.

    Also, for another good article on the swindle’s swindle, click here.

    Always good to check the sources. Always good to do our best to keep ourselves in reality. There may be much to question about how global warming will play out; but there is no question that human beings have caused the Earth’s atmosphere to warm through our reckless use of fossil fuels and that life as we know it is changing all around us as a result.

    We don’t have time for this anymore. Let’s get on with the work we have to do to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

    Margaret

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